Verlyn Klinkenborg comes from a family of Iowa farmers and is the author of Making Hay, The Last Fine Time, The Rural Life, Timothy, and Several Short Sentences About Writing. A member of the editorial board of the New York Times, he has written for The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, National Geographic, Mother Jones, and the New York Times Magazine, among others. He teaches creative writing at Yale University and Pomona College and lives on a small farm in upstate New York.